An Update on Dietary Guidelines

Every five years, federal nutrition experts update the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The newest guidelines, issued in January 2005, replaced the old Food Pyramid with an interactive Web site to help you figure out your daily calorie needs.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's My Pyramid (http://www.mypyramid.gov) Web site calculates nutrition requirements based your age, gender and the amount of physical activity you get each day. It also offers tips and suggestions on healthy eating.

Here's a summary of the nine keys points stressed in the 2005 dietary guidelines:

• Eat a variety of foods from the basic food groups. Including a variety of foods in your daily menu helps make sure you get essential nutrients. You should also aim for balancing the amount of food you eat with the amount of activity you get each day. Types of foods that should be limited include added sugars, solid fats and alcoholic beverages. These foods provide calories but few essential nutrients.

• Control the number of calories you eat in order to manage your weight. Most Americans are overweight and need to reduce the amount of calories they consume. When it comes to weight control, calories are the most important aspect, not how many carbs, fats or proteins you eat. To maintain a healthy weight, you need to balance calories against energy expended. If you need to lose weight, you should eat less, become more physically active, or do both.

• Be physically active every day. Regular daily exercise -- at least 30 to 60 minutes every day -- reduces your risk for chronic health conditions such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes and coronary artery disease; 60 to 90 minutes a day is even better. It doesn’t have to be all at one time, try taking three 20 minute exercise breaks during the day. Be sure to check with your health care provider before starting an exercise program.

• Add more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and nonfat or low-fat milk and milk products to your daily diet.

• Choose fats wisely for good health. Limit the amount of saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol you eat so that you help keep your level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol low and reduce your risk for coronary heart disease. You should aim to keep saturated fat below 10 percent of your daily calories, trans fat to less than 1 percent of calories, and cholesterol below 300 mg per day. For adults, total fat intake should be 20 to 35 percent of daily calories.

• Pick fiber-rich carbohydrates. Choose whole fruits rather than juices and whole grains instead of refined grains. Eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nonfat or low-fat milk or milk products is a healthful way to get the recommended amounts of carbohydrates.

• Choose and prepare foods with little salt. Reducing how much salt you eat is one of several ways to lower blood pressure. Keeping your blood pressure in the normal range reduces your chance for developing a stroke, heart disease, heart failure and kidney disease. Most Americans eat too much salt, much of it from processed foods. Your goal should be less than 2,300 mg of sodium per day (equivalent to 5.8 grams of salt).

• If you drink alcoholic beverages, do so in moderation. Moderation is defined as no more than one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men. One drink is defined as 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine (12 percent alcohol) or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.

• Keep food safe to eat. Foodborne diseases cause about 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths in this country each year. When you prepare food at home, follow these prevention tips:

1. Clean your hands, counters and cutting boards, and fruits and vegetables.

2. Separate raw, cooked and ready-to-eat foods when shopping, preparing foods or storing them.

3. Cook foods to a safe temperature.

4. Chill perishable foods promptly.